Oo
1 June–15 September 2013
Opening: 30 May 2013, 17:00
Palasport “Giobatta Gianquinto”
(Palasport Arsenale)
Calle San Biagio 2132, Castello – Venezia
cyprusinvenice [at] gmail.com
www.oo-oo.bo
Circa 1813
One day, sand welcomes a new guest in its life: glass that contains either liquid or time. Molecules gain heavy velocity. In a couple hundred years, Phanos Kyriacou will dig it up in his backyard.
1973
Foundations for the building of Palasport Arsenale, designed by Enrichetto Capuzzo, are laid in Venice. It reminds one of Noah’s Ark on wheels. Almost forty years later, Constantinos Taliotis discovers how modernist architecture affected another vehicle—a motorcycle.
1977
Completed Palasport Arsenale is named after Giobatta Gianquinto, a native Venetian, a criminal lawyer, member of the Italian Communist Party and mayor of Venice from 1946 to 1951.
8 NOVEMBER 2012
Raimundas Malašauskas lands in Nicosia to test the premises of two national pavilions as one exhibition called Oo. Stelios Votsis, one of the most revered and groundbreaking artists in Cyprus, dies the next morning.
DECEMBER 2012
The Guide BoOk by Natalie Yiaxi starts running as a sequencer. Sequencer stands for a model of an affectable subject that generates orders of bodies and clots of knowledge, depending on the circumstances it encounters. These circumstances are in transit, in the same way the content of the exhibition becomes so.
4 DECEMBER 2012
Krõõt Juurak changes her name to KrOot—her name becomes a venue to be sublet by other artists.
8 MARCH 2013
A new obituary for Horace Goldin—whirlwind illusionist and inventor of Sawing a Woman in Half, who was born in Vilnius and died in 1939—written by Malak Helmy in Alexandria, is released.
15 MARCH 2013
European Central Bank proposes the Cyprus government imposes a levy on deposits. An unprecedented case in European financial history. Oo shakes like never before—one of the two countries is on the brink of collapse.
24 MARCH 2013
Enrichetto Capuzzo, the architect of Palasport Arsenale, dies.
25 MARCH 2013
Edith Scob, the chauffeuresse of Holy Motors (2012, Leos Carax) drives a conversation about life in transition: it shows transition as a space in which one could stay, yet the space itself is moving, it is a car, and transition becomes a way to stay in change.
1 APRIL 2013
According to Cyprus-based Greek photographer Thodoris Tzalavras, the atmosphere in Nicosia is so saturated by Saharan dust that it is possible to shoot the sun with a C8+ telescope without a solar filter, even capturing a sunspot on the upper left part.
Liudvikas Buklys goes to Prienai to film the biggest snowman in Lithuania.
11 APRIL 2013
A dream containing several elements of Oo appears to Maria Hassabi (“there were lots of big women dressed in white, dancing around like Isadoras, lots of writing everywhere, graffiti sort of style, and still dark. Gintaras Didžiapetris’ project was a huge hamburger projected on the wall […]“).
30 MAY 2013
An exhibition called oO (or Oo) opens at Palasport in Venice. Band 18+ play live at the opening. A cocktail formerly known as Vilnius Sling is served. Lia Haraki tunes the building to her heartbeat.
16 JUNE 2013
A festival of calisthenics takes place at Palasport. 120 girls (age 4–13) perform in the scenography of Cousins, a display architecture adapted especially for the event.
27 JUNE 2013
“Ponte della Libertà, remove the poles: It will be a summer without light,” fires the June 27th issue of Il Gazzettino on the table of the cafe (precise location to be announced) in Venice.
Artists: Liudvikas Buklys, Gintaras Didžiapetris, Jason Dodge, Lia Haraki, Maria Hassabi, Phanos Kyriacou, Myriam Lefkowitz, Gabriel Lester, Elena Narbutaitė, Morten Norbye Halvorsen, Algirdas Šeškus, Dexter Sinister, Constantinos Taliotis, Kazys Varnelis, Natalie Yiaxi, Vytautė Žilinskaitė
Curator: Raimundas Malašauskas; Commissioner: Louli Michaelidou; Assistant Commissioners:Angela Skordi & Marika Ioannou; Production Manager: Francesca Bertolotti; Project Coordinators:Constantinos Filiotis & Roscianach Habibi Minelli; Graphic Designers: Julie Peeters & Joris Kritis
The participation of the Republic of Cyprus in the Venice Biennial is organized by the Ministry of Education and Culture.
